Friday, December 23, 2011

Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal, Besting Microsoft and Yahoo

Google is shelling out a lot of money to Mozilla (though the amount may not be much from Google's perspective) to ensure that they are the default browser in Mozilla Firefox. I feel this is Google trying to ensure that nobody uses the Firefox browser market-share to get close to them in terms of search (Microsoft would have loved to, given the amount they have spent on Bing). I have heard others saying the Google is making sure that Firefox exists until Chrome can take over all the browser market share it can and thus eliminate significant competition. That is not far fetched in terms of what they might want but I am not sure whether such a thing will happen. Another thought is that Google might be trying to ensure that they appear in the good books of authorities looking for anti-competitive behavior (given google is acquiring a company every week according to them).

In the meantime I hope Mozilla can do some good with the money and resources they get hold off. A better firefox browser and other such products will always be good for consumer because it makes for better competition and provides more choice for us. Let us hope that is what happens.